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tv   Martin Bashir  MSNBC  July 19, 2011 12:00pm-1:00pm PDT

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control ♪ >> the head of the news corp has trouble with the memory. >> i did not know at the time. i never knew of it. >> i never heard. >> i don't have any memory of it. ♪ >> but he is clear on one thing -- >> you accept ultimately you are responsible for that whole fiasco? >> no. >> oh, no, not him. the moment that may define the meeting between rupert murdoch and his son james and parliament today was not a moment of admission, was not a moment of guilt or even apology in what has grown into an international media scandal. it was the moment a spectator armed with a pie of some sort launched the pastry at the 80-year-old media baron. somehow it summed up the situation a little too perfectly. rupert murdoch one of the world's most powerful men and ceo of news corp and owner of
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fox news called to testify and face it, to gravel beforer the politicians who had once come to gravel before him. when the pie came, rupert was defended by his wife, 42-year-old wendi deng, and while she may have thwarted the pastry assault, it was his son james who tried to take the brunt of the questioning in their testimony before parliament. rupert murdoch's job was to dodge the questions. and he blamed others and his memory. check it out. >> i was not aware of that. >> i didn't know of it. >> i never heard of it. >> i don't have any memory. >> it does not appear he knew. >> his son carried however a much heavier load and often interjecting on his father's behalf. >> please, i can address these in some detail if you would allow me. >> we will continue, mr. murdoch, but it is your father who is responsible for the corporate governance so i would
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like to know what he knew, but i will come back to you. >> and for over two hours the two men answered questions about the massive phone hacking in the uk and here in america. >> as understood that the fbi are investigating 9/11 victims of you commissioning an investigation into these allegations. >> we have seen no evidence of that at all, and as far as we know, the fbi haven't, and if they do, we will treat it exactly the same. exact think same way it is treated here, and i can't believe it happened from anyone in america. >> and in a revealing moment, murdoch was asked about his relationship with the prime minister david cameron. >> you were asked to the come to the back door of number 10? >> yes. i was invited within days to have a cup of tea to be thanked f for the support. >> this is very much about the murdoch family and in some ways
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the past, but more than that the future in which rupert himself in a moment of seeming confidence made clear. >> i was brought up by a father who was not rich, but a great journalist. and he just before he died bought a small paper, and specifically "news of the world" saying to do good and i remember what he did and what he was most proud of and for which he was hated in this country by many people for many, many years, which was expose the scandal which i remain have very proud of. >> well, i think they we are all students of history are well aware of it. >> and i would love to see my sons and daughters follows, if they are interested. >> for more on the meeting to i da, i am joined by stephanie
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gosk in london. stephanie, thank you for joining. >> you are welcome. good to be here. >> was it enough the testimony today? i mean, pie aside, did the murdochs manage to escape the morning unscathed? >> well, they seemed to have, and the objectives of the committee and the objectives of the murdochs were quite different and the committee was trying to get at new information and it was not clear that they really got any, and the murdochs were trying to save the image of their company that has come under incredible fire in the last two weeks, and they did that by dumping everything on the paper, the "news of the world" and at one point rupert murdoch said that "news of the world" represents less than one percent of the news corp and used it in his own admission as a kind of execution for why he didn't know what was going on there, and he talks about the fact that he hired people around the world that he trusted to run his company. he doesn't know the ins and outs of what was necessarily going on in the paper. and another thing that happened here, ezra, too, as you mentioned the family dynamic.
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and very clearly james murdoch took control of the questioning early on. at times jumping in for his father, and at times actually taking questions when rupert murdoch turned to him and asked him what the answer was. ezra. >> stephanie gosk reporting from london. our thanks. what makes murdoch and more importantly his empire vulnerable is an embarrassment. it is not forgetfulness or high velocity pastry, but it is money. murdoch is a genius businessman and that can't be denied, but he is also a man of deep passions and ideological commitments and long-held grudges and the market knows it. a recent bloomberg story led with a question that seems like it should be simple, what is news corpore really worth? they said at least 50% more without rupert murdoch. and the way they get it is from estimates of barclay's, and they
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say that it is worth much more than it trades for on the market, so there is a generic murdoch discount which encompasses that he will make decisions that are not consistent with the other shareholder interests. and so what makes news corp vuler inable is that this could make the murdoch discount as they call it bigger. in the short term, it may not matter that much, because murdoch's family owns 43% of the company and it would be difficult to kick him out, but if the family is discredited and the investors see a company worth a lot more than it is trading for and ripe for a takeover and you know who is very good at taking over businesses that are ripe with family struggles? "the new york times," because that is how he acquired them. they might not even need that much convincing to sell the company for much more than it is worth if they remain in charge of it.
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joining us now are brian steltzer, journalist at "the new york times" to talk about the scandal. the murdoch discount is something that is well known and they talk about it a lot in the market, and is it getting big r bigger. >> the last time we heard about it is when he bought the "wall street journal," and they said that buying into the troubled newspaper sector is a bad idea and now newspapers like "news of the world" are shuttered and parts of the business and analysts love fox news and fox network and bskyb who he wants to own the rest of it which is off of the table now because of to scandal, but if they can concentrate on the high performing assets, they are okay in the long run. news corp is not going to allow the company to be hurt in the long run, but the newspaper division, clearly wounded. >> and they could have problems going forward, because yahoo!'s daniel gross did an interesting
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column on this and he said that the hit to the credibility will create a different freedom for working there and harder for places that the murdoch companies own to hire good journlgists, because to get them to come over after this is that you will have to pay them extra, and more to sort of deal with the reputational problems of the company. >> and it is possible that some of the high-performers of the "wall street journal" or fox news might be looking elsewhere, but i highly doubt that would be a permanent blow to the company. you know, we may see one or two people depart, but it is not a lasting repercussion, but it is if it spreads to the u.s., but so far, no proof of it. that is lost in the coverage, no proof that the scandal has moved to the u.s., but if somehow it does and in some way we are not expect ping yet, then all bets are off. >> in the reporting, are there talks of changes in the family transition, and in that, rupert murdoch would like his son james in particular to take over, and you heard of interim ceos and what is the current thinking? >> well, the analysts have been
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contemplating what could happen and it is known that rupert murdoch could consider stepping up to chairman and someone else taking over as the ceo, and afterall he is a senior citizen and at this for a long time and in some ways want to slow dun. there were reports last night and one report in particular saying he was considering doing so, but today in the testimony he said, no, i am not considering stepping down and in fact, he says he is the best man to clean up this mess. it comes down the what investors and the board think of that, and so far with the stock up 6% today, they may be showing a sign of approval right now. >> brian, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. and much more on the rupert murdoch scandal ahead as martin bashir joins us from london. and next the gang of six says, let's make a deal, and will the republicans in the house say no? stay with us. a big part of this community. re/max agents know their markets, and they care enough to get to know you, too. nobody sells more real estate than re/max. visit remax.com today.
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you never want to doubt washington's endless capacity to disappoint, but you know it is possible, just maybe that if things go just right that there's a chance, a small one, a sliver of hope that we have had a major breakthrough here on the debt debate. today president obama made a surprise appearance in the white house briefing room to address the debt negotiations and began by describing how he sees thing, but then he brought up something new, the revival of the so-called gang of six. senators from both parties who are suddenly and some say unexpectedly to come forward to propose a package to finally settle the debt ceiling debate. >> so, here is where we stand. we have a democratic president and administration that is prepared to sign a tough package that is including both spending cuts, modifications to social
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security and medicare and medicaid to strengthen those systems and would include a revenue component and we now have a bipartisan group of senators who agree with that balanced approach, and we have got the american people who agree with that balanced approach. >> you remember the gang of six, right? the one that then become the gang of five after senator tom coburn left them in the lurch and then they were dormant and you never heard a word from them? well, they are back unexpectly and may have brought some friends. the gang of five is now gang of six again and coburn rejoined again, and they have presented the plan they have been working on for seven months to more than 50 of the colleagues, and from what i'm hearing the colleagues like it. senator mark udall said it is a lot of support to turn the gang into a mob. and kay bailey hutchinson said she thought it could get 60 votes and although she is
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optimistic that the house should like this plan, because it has spending cuts and i believe it will spur the economy. the plan, itself, is two parts, and the first is $500 billion in cuts and new revenues. and the second part is to reform the tax code to raise $1 trillion in tax reforms and then another bill to save another $2 trillion by cutting discretionary spending and entitlements medicare and medicaid and ultimately social security. when they say that everything is on the table, they are talking about this kind of plan. now, i don't care who you are or what you believe, there is a lot you won't like here. there is a lot frankly not to like here and there is a lot i don't like here and one imposed rule would impose a cap on discretionary spending and you need a 2/3 majority to end it, and rules like that are unusual,
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and there is new revenues in there, and give them credit in the spending credits it is efforts to protect food stamps, and child tax credits and programs to help the poor, and medicaid and medicare and priorities being balanced it is a far cry from the absurdities of paul ryan's budget that we can do it without a dime of revenue and do it with cut, cap and balance which is a constitutional change to force changes and would never pass congress. now, this is the law of self-expectations, and maybe it is look better because the rest of it is so absurd that our sights are so low, but in politics and congress in particular, they are relevant, and there are better versions that what is on the table righ now and it is a grand bargain
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and not a grand hostage negotiation. joining me is stephen king, a republican from ohio. thank you for coming on. >> thank you for having me. >> tom coburn is conservative and saxby chambliss, and mark crapo, and both of them were involved deeply in drafting this compromise, so can you see this something you would support? h. >> well, it is what i have heard, and half a trillion in cuts now is a big cut and the trillion of revenue generation and what are the tax loopholes closed? we have different definitions of what that is, and then when you look at it with the piece of it that you mentioned that requires a 2/3 majority vote of congress that is to overturn or to advance, i don't think that you can bind a subsequent consequence and i know you can't, so that would take a constitutional amendment to get to a supermajority requirement or otherwise a simple majority
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would go right in notwithstanding the language of the super majority, and so there are moving parts to it. what i do like is that the democrats and the republicans have proposed hard choices presented to the american people and when that happens it tells the american people what we have to do, we have to make hard choices. what are our principles and where are we trying to go? i did not hear the amount of debt ceiling increase with it, and i presume the $2.4 trillion, but we should be doing something with the debt ceiling increase if we do it at all to bring it to a conclusion a year from now to reassess the situation rather than all of us seeking to dodge that bullet before the election in 2012. >> i would like to ask you that, congressman, knowing what a election year is like, why would you want to put a debt ceiling increase in the middle of it? if it is a $2.5 trillion increase we are far beyond the dollar for dollar demand that speaker boehner has made so why bring this into the middle of an
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e le lection year when the chanf a catastrophic mistake is heightened, and isn't that when we would wantn't to do a debt ceiling increase? >> well, it is $3 trillion for $2.4 trillion debt ceiling inincrease, and i have faith in the american people. they sent a new majority to the house of representatives to put an end to the irresponsible spending. i would be happy to put it before the voters a sierra nevada the n-- voters and the n elected voters and hold them accountable. if we do this in 2013 which is what this does, then we are dodging the responsibility that we have to face the voters with this these decisions, and too often, members of congress will appoint the commission or mitch mcconnell's proposal which put the responsibility back on the president in a way to avoid the responsibility for congress, and we do those things too often and i want congress accountable and we need to make decisions and
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make them accountable and tell people what we are willing and not willing to do. >> let me read something that david brooks wrote today in "the new york times." he was writing about republicans and primarily house republicans and he said quote, they do not believe in seizing opportunities to make steady messy progress towards conservative goals, but they believe that politics is a cataclysmic struggle and they can remain pure in the faith and in some day their party can win over their foes. >> he is not a conservative, but he is describing the position of some of my colleagues in that, and sometimes in the debates and usually it is off-channel and not in the public debate of how we get to perfection and i hear debates to say don't accept the lesser of two evils which happens in political races as well as in policy decisions. my argument is that we have the take what we can get when we can get it and we have to use the leverage that we have when we the opportunity to do so, and my regret of where we stand today is that we weren't willing to
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use the leverage of the continuing resolution debate as far as i think that we should have gone, and i'm concerned that we won't be using the leverage of this debt ceiling debate and take it as far as we should go as well. >> congressman steve king of iowa, thank you for joining us. >> thank you very much. and coming up, rupert murdoch may not remember much about today, but he will never forget that pie. an amazing scene with an amazing history plays out as the world watches. ♪ i don't remember ♪ i don't recall
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thankfully, no one was hurt today when rupert murdoch was assailed with what turned out to be a sort of cream pie as he testified at a parliament hearing and if anything, it was the attacker who faired the worst given the vigorous defense of his wife wendi deng who jumped up to give him a slap.
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and this immediately began trending on twitter. because of the shock of the pie games at the media tycoon, the history of the pie has quite a history. bill gates was pied in belgium in 1988 by an enraged windows user, and i use mac, so it was a seeming right to me, and also ann coulter and sometimes the pies are self-inflicted as jon stewart said. >> if you have the emissions of the -- the cap room. >> i don't know what he is talking about? cap and trade is fascinating. but the pie tin is not han dirks you can say it with glitter as the republican presidential candidates are finding out lately. >> any way, next, martin bashir who is not covered in pie or glitter is in london with the
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open an account today and put schwab mobile to work for you. back to london and the scandal now threatening rupert murdoch's media empire. earlier today the mogo mogulle son james arrived at parliament to face intense questioning. so far people have emerged since the bribery allegations. and the whole world is watching. martin bashir is in london with the latest developments and he joins us now. good afternoon, martin. >> good afternoon, ezra. that was sweet of you to say that. >> and martin what is the reaction on that side to the testimony that we have heard today? >> well, ezra, an afternoon of high drama as the world is focus o ed on the murdoch empire and
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with so many allegations of phone hacking and police payments and outrage has given way to answers and improved accountability. we have witnessed the sudden stunning shutdown of britain's biggest selling newspaper, world, and with that gone, 2,000 jobs are gone, and we have seen two police officers resign and also the right-hand woman of rupert murdoch, rebekah brooks. but after weeks of trying to downplay the scandal the murdochs were in the hot seat today facing a rare public grilling before a committee in the house of commons. >> did you or anyone else at your organization investigate this at the time? >> no. >> can you explain why? >> i didn't know of it. >> so, despite the fact that blackmail can result in a 14-year prison sentence, nobody
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in your uk company brought this fact to your attention? >> blackmail charge, no. >> do you think that might be because they thought you would think nothing of it? >> no. i can't answer. i don't know. >> and then there was this, the day's proceedings suddenly interrupted by a pie-wielding protester aiming for the media mogul only to be thwarted by the quick reactions of his wife, wendi murdoch, who jumped to his defense. ultimately mr. murdoch admitted to no culpability in the scandal. >> do you accept that ultimately, mr. murdoch, you are responsible for the whole fiasco? >> no. >> i am joined now by a woman who is a personal friend of the murdoch family, and vicky ward is a contributing editor of the "vanity fair" and works on
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several of the murdoch newspapers. >> thank you, martin, for having me. >> rupert murdoch is known to be a fierce businessman and creating a vast media empire, and do you honestly believe that mr. murdoch knew absolutely nothing that was going on in the london offices of his newspapers? >> i mean, look, i'm not rupert murdoch, so i i'm not inside of his head, but the man i would believe what he said today, yes. i think that he may, you know, he made the point that the "news of the world" was one percent of a vast empire and he also made the point that he puts people in senior positions whom he trusts. and he got let down. and his aim is to get to the bottom of how exactly he got letdown, and who it was that let him down. and i think that what was quite interesting today was it seems quite clear that the story is a
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lot more complicated than so far we have been led to believe by simply what we have read and the arrests that have been made. it is clearly more complicated than that. and i think that many things emerged this afternoon that were very interesting and most of it interesting to me, i thought, was a very impressive of the son. >> and vicky before you go into that, you say that you believe what he said, and then yet a number of the mps in the committee kept asserting that he is responsible for the corporate governance and regularly spoke to the editors of the newspaper, and piers morgan who was editor of the "news of the world" said he spoke to him once a week every week for 18 months. is it really possible that the head of this massive media empire who was producing stories in his national newspapers,
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which were nothing short of sensational almost on a weekly basis that he knew absolutely zero? >> i think that it is possible for the following reasons. number one, when piers morgan was in charge of the "news of the world" i remember i was still living in england, so that is a very long time ago, because i moved to america in 1997. and i think that in the old days when, you know, you have to remember that rupert broke the print unions in britain in the 1980s and a great ally of margaret thatcher's and is a way the man responsible for the very competitive british press which is unique to britain. i mean, it doesn't exist in any other country in the world, and i think that in the early days, he was much more hand's on on it, and he did used to call the
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editor of the "sun" but that was a long time ago, and news corps has evolved and become a far bigger company and much more interested in the money-making assets such as television, you know, cable, satellite, movies. the print division has gotten smaller and smaller with the exception of obviously, his very audacious bid for the "wall street journal" which he has improved. >> vicky, i have to take you back throw to something though you just said where you suggested that the british newspaper environment was so competitive that it may have added, induced, caused, coerced people to do criminal things. one of the things that murdoch said in the evidence today is that he believed that the competitive environment was good for democracy and life in p
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british life and surely it was the competitive environment that forced his employees to commit felonious acts, and some of them in jail and others to follow, and you are describing the culture of the company as if competitiveness is good thing, but it is patently clear that the competitiveness induced people to commit crime. >> well, two things, martin. he did make the point, and it is an important point that when he created this culture, it was to create a transparency and to make sure that the establishment was accountable to the people in england and two years ago the daily telegraph, a competitor the "times" and the "sunday times" his papers bought stolen material that revealed mp's abuses on the expense reports. now the british readers of these
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papers didn't seem to care so much that illegal means had been used, because the ends produced a story that seemed to be in the public interest. so, i think that what you have got here is a very problematic, if you like, system where on the one hand competition can be good and it can be very, very bad. obviously, you know, tampering in a criminal investigation is bad, and no one is suggesting that is good. >> no. well, i am glad to hear you say that vicky, and the outrage on this side of the water is palpable, because that phone hacking involved murdered teenagers and the children of families who lost loved ones in afghanistan and iraq. but for the moment, thank you very much indeed, vicky ward. >> thank you, marlin. >>ly stick around here in london
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welcome back. melissa ilissa rehberger is in newsroom with stories. >> well, michael vick who served 18 months in prison on dog fighting is in washington to talk about the sport. and nasa is earlier today as the space shuttle "atlantis" started the final leg of the 30-year journey. as the space shuttle touches down, the americans will rely on the soyez rockets back to the space station until we can put
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our own back into the air. ezra? >> yes, and we will breakdown what is happening on wall street.
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i'm hampton pearson with the cnbc market wrap and here is how the stocks are doing today. a big time late day rally under way. right now the dow is up over 200 points and the s&p up 21 points and the nasdaq up more than 59 points. network equipment maker cisco systems will layoff about 9% of the workforce by august. the computer networking giant says the move is to cut costs and raise profits. american express is hoping to cut into groupon and social deals by launching a facebook app that offers personalized e coupons based on profile information, and amex holders will click on the deal and charge it to their account. that is first from cnbc, first
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in business worldwide. ezra, back to you. >> thank you, hampton. if a debt deal is going to work, it has to satisfy two constituencies, wall street and washington washington is worried about the details, how much of it is taxes and how much in spending, and are the poor protected? are the rich protected? if it does pass, the people who passed it survive the next election in wall street is worried and the big picture, does it cut the deficit by a sufficient amount? will it work? will washington stick to it in the coming years? will it appease the credit rating agencies like moody's and standard & poor's. so we will talk to people on both tribes. first joining me is one of the negotiators of the 1999 budget deal. james, thank you for joining me. >> glad to join you, ezra. >> is this a balanced deal? i know you have looked at the details, but does it fit the
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balanced criteria of the president had laid out? >> well, first of all, i think that having a balanced deal is absolutely crucial, because i don't think that we really will deal with the deficit in a substantial way unless it is a balanced approach that has increases in revenues and reductions in spending similar to the 1990 deal that helped to get to a balanced budget. while i wish that the package that the gang of six is talking about had somewhat more revenues or balances like the other propopr proposals i give the gang of six a lot of credit for any increases that need to be in place to pass a budget deal. >> and are there any taxes or gimmicks for health care spending with no way to get there, but when you look at it,
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is it seeming solid to you? >> well, first of all, there is not an enormous amount of detail there, and what they have got is a plan that lays out the framework and the members of the group have definite things in mind, but not all of the details are in the information they released, but i think that the numbers do look like they make sense. they track pretty closely to what the bowles/simpson commission, the commission appointed by president obama came up with, and that was a solid effort. i think that one of the things here that people look at is say it does have substantial revenues and one of the things to keep in mind is that it is about a $1 trillion increase in revenue and couple trillion cut in spending, but $1 trillion increase in revenue in addition to the savings you would get from simply allowing the upper income bush tax breaks expire at the end of 2012, so when you take the savings that they have here in addition to those, it does add up to something
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meaningful. >> and what is the political back story're? the gang of six became gang of five and seemingly dead, so how did they resuscitate? >> i don't know what was going on, but it started with members of the bowles/simpson commission, and bipartisan s senators and who thought that they came up with a package that made sense. so they tried to put some details together that they hoped could attract other people in the senate. i think that it is sort of set aside, and i mean, obviously, they run into the same sorts of problems that anybody does when you get to the details, you will run into the opposition of all of the sides, and i think that they set aside as other efforts went forward, i suspect what happened here is that they saw that there had not been agreement reach and the biden talks led by vice president biden and other discussions had not reached any firm conclusion, and i think that the members of the gang of six said, well, let's go back to see if we can come together and maybe give some momentum here for a deficit
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reduction package that can get bipartisan support. >> jim, thank you for joining me. we are also joined by liz ann saunders who is anbowles. i know wall street prize itself not looking at the details, not released publicly. they did see simpson bowles. is that enough? that this would sort of solve that problem? >> we do have to see more of the details, were ut having served on a presidential commission back in 2005, president bush's bipartisan tax refor commission, i know how hard it is to end up way bold plan when dealing with bipartisan reform. i think wall street was disenchantsed it was tossed aside. to see that back on the table and teed up as the basis for the plan is a great thing. >> when wall street looks at plan like this, what primarily are think looking for? what of the benchmarks?
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>> i think the split, assumptions made by economic growth. that's the real key to pulling us out of this. you mentioned in a piece to this, the ratings agencies. i think maybe the ratings agency was erring on the side of progressiveness in light of they didn't do so well during the subprime crisis. think how much it priced off treasuries and the notion of credit, one of the biggest issues with what wall street was dealing as it retted to this deal. so i think if we can stem the tide of rating, a great piece in the short term for the market. >> and people that don't appreciate it, look at the debt ceiling and say it would be bad if the government had to pay more tomorrow, but what does it effect me? treasuries are the benchmark, the base for the -- >> they're the risk-free rate, right, against preparing everything. >> the treasury the in there? >> it's in there and going to be priced specifically in terms of the interest rate you pay, off
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the ten-year yield, but there's a direct relationship across the spectrum of maturities. when you have everything priced against and everything benchmarked against something that, whose rating is now called into question, that really throws a giant monkey wrench into all of asset management. >> right. so forgetting default, people sometimes talking about prioritization and maybe won't go all wait off the cliff but certainly unsettle the market. if that happens and if interest rates go up not by 10% or 15%, something crazy be but 2%, 1%, we will see mortgages and credit card loans and auto loans and loans of businesses expanding that will hit the real economy? >> it will. the thing to concentrate on, though, and it may be important in terms of what the treasury market has been telling you about the deal is you haven't seen any kind of move there from an anticipation perspective. the fact that the ten-year treasury yield stay around 3% is telling you that the market has felt that we were going to get a deal, and that a downgrade was
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unlikely and given the news today, it looks like we're getting closer to the point where we can see, the treasury market was right. yes, the risk down the road, not yet reflected in the yields, was that yields would go up dramatically. >> the concern in a scenario of that, everybody feels we'll get closer to the deal when we have optimistic moments like this. what about unexpectedly was a deal cracks apart when it comes to the house of pretives? >> t.a.r.p. might have been a lesson to a lot of political leaders when facing something as dire as we are now. i think thz realization of the implications of default. the impetus is there to get a deal done and there on both sides. >> thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. nation of at&t and t-mobile would deliver our next generation mobile broadband experience to 55 million more americans, many in small towns and rural communities, giving them a new choice. we'll deliver better service, with thousands of new cell sites... for greater access to all the things you want,
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it's time now to "clear the air." most americans it's fair to say don't hold congress in high esteem. let me rephrase that, actually. virtually, no americans hold
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congress in high esteem. the same approval rating of feeling sad and skinning your knee. you know what? i don't hold congress in very high esteem, at least not as an institution. it's broken. dysfunctional. the rules don't make sense. a perennial disappointment. as a report i've dealt with a lot of members of congress individually and they're usually a lot better. by and large, thoughtful, well meaning. they enter public service because they felt they could do good. they often sleep in their office and spend a lot of time away from their family. washington, thought they could have more of an impact than they can and all too often end up playing by the town's rules and buckling under pressure. in their own small ways they try to make a difference. putting enormous efforts to get rid of federal bureaucracy and get shoulders into pushing small, worthwhile technical amendments you no longer know about they think will do good.
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the life of a legislate sir failing on a lot of big things and failing on the small things node will ever know about. i have sympathy and keep in mind their achievements. failing on the big things is something they choose to do. it's not something they have to do. and you know, they know it. all of these gangs of six, fiscal commissions, negotiations, waning meetings where 60 senators seam assemble. they know what good legislating looks like. they want to do it, but then ideological forces bring down the hammer and they run. figure better live to fight another day than make change. not one -- you can't blame that on the system. that one is their. i read deep enough into the gang of six's new proposal to see if it's right or wrong way to go. the spirit behind it, real negotiations when both sides give something up to get an outcome everyone knows he need, that's clearly the right way to
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go, and maybe if more legislators went that way more often, the american people wouldn't hold them in such contempt. for morgan and myself, thanks for watching. you can find me at twitter and dylan ratigan picks things up from here. what's on the agenda? >> very nice to see you for a second, ezra, first of all. our show begins right now. well, the big story today, you don't have to look far to find it. the hot seat. news corps media mowing's rupert murdoch and the role of the media in government. rupert's son, and the british publishing executives and scotland yard top cop all in the dragnet drilled by british lawmakers on allegation of hacking, spying and bribing, oh, yes, all the